In September 2015, then 44 year-old CEO of BioViva USA Inc. Elizabeth Parrish received two of her own company’s experimental gene therapies: one to protect against loss of muscle mass with age, another to battle stem cell depletion responsible for diverse age-related diseases and infirmities.

The treatment was originally intended to demonstrate the safety of the latest generation of the therapies. But if early data is accurate, it is already the world’s first successful example of telomere lengthening via gene therapy in a human individual. Gene therapy has been used to lengthen telomeres before in cultured cells and in mice, but never in a human patient.

- PhD student researching Aging, Mitochondria, and Regenerative Medicine -
I currently write for The Conversation (http://bit.ly/13WVyUW) and I have
written for The Guardian (http://bit.ly/13WVtRh) - Ringleader of the Oxford
University Scientific Society - Co-conspirator at the Oxford Transhumanism
and Emerging Technologies - Designing exciting events with the British
Science Association Oxford - Advisory Board member at Lifeboat Foundation's
Life Extension Board, and the Sustainability Board - Also, I am an Ultimate
(frisbee) enthusiast - Yes, unfortunately that's me trying to catch the
frisbee